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Me lleva vs me llevo

  Tags: Grammar | Spanish
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44 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 
Raчraч Ŋuɲa
Triglot
Senior Member
New Zealand
Joined 5819 days ago
154 posts - 233 votes 
Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 41 of 44
31 December 2010 at 4:10am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:

So much fuss over a little example. The OP must think that some people have nothing
better to do during the holidays.


Ok, let's stop this. Happy New Year to you...and everyone! (peace)
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Raчraч Ŋuɲa
Triglot
Senior Member
New Zealand
Joined 5819 days ago
154 posts - 233 votes 
Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 42 of 44
31 December 2010 at 4:18am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Juаn wrote:


Cainntear wrote:
"Hay" is from "haber", and if we put the sentences into the past we
get:
Había una chica.
Había muchas chicas.



Here you are correct. Most native speakers though say (wrongly) habían muchas
chicas, but you'll never find something like this in any respectable printed
source.


I find it very interesting to learn the most speakers say (wrongly) habían muchas
chicas. This shows that they spontaneously try to make the verb agree with the plural
subject. But to come back to hay muchas chicas, the subject is still muchas chicass.
This is an unusual example where the subject does not agree in number with the verb.
But where is the dummy subject? Why posit the existence of an ello that is incorporated
in hay? This is completely unnecessary.

In fact the concept of dummy subject of dummy pronoun usually applies to those
languages, such as English and French where a verb subject is written without any
antecedent. Basically, you cannot have a dummy subject in Spanish because pronouns are
usually omitted. Compare the two following forms:

Es prohibido fumar
It is forbidden to smoke.

English uses this dummy subject It whereas Spanish has the subject fumar. Of course,
in English one could have said "Smoking is forbidden" where Smoking becomes the
subject.


You're right. English has dummy subject but Spanish has null subject since subject
pronouns are dropped.

Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 31 December 2010 at 10:14am
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6012 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 43 of 44
31 December 2010 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Juаn wrote:


Cainntear wrote:
"Hay" is from "haber", and if we put the sentences into the past we get:
Había una chica.
Había muchas chicas.



Here you are correct. Most native speakers though say (wrongly) habían muchas chicas, but you'll never find something like this in any respectable printed source.


I find it very interesting to learn the most speakers say (wrongly) habían muchas chicas. This shows that they spontaneously try to make the verb agree with the plural subject. But to come back to hay muchas chicas, the subject is still muchas chicass. This is an unusual example where the subject does not agree in number with the verb. But where is the dummy subject? Why posit the existence of an ello that is incorporated in hay? This is completely unnecessary.

"chicas" cannot be the subject, otherwise it would be habían. Spanish verbs always agree with the subject.

I think you're still getting confused by the infinitives - me gusta bailar y comer etc. "bailar y comer" is not plural because it's neuter. It's an abstract linguistic construct. It's not two nouns, it's something different.

Muchas chicas is unambiguously plural.

If pluralising "hay" (as in habían muchas chicas) is an increasingly common error in Spanish, it would actually support my theory that Spanish is currently in the process of losing its dummy "it".
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lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5299 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes 

 
 Message 44 of 44
01 January 2011 at 1:21pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
... my theory that Spanish is currently in the process of losing its dummy "it".

Dummy means you put something where there is no real thing, you fill an empty position with a dummy subject, and this is n o t what happens in Spanish, as both Raчraч Ŋuɲa and s_allard have pointed out. Please, repeating this makes no sense.
Spanish is a null subject language, what means exactly this: It does n o t need the subject position (artificially) filled, the subject position can be empty, and how you interpret this empty depends on your linguistic framework, but why describe it as dummy? When you test cars the driver seat can be empty o r you put a dummy in it.
But probably more important :-) :
Happy New Year to everybody!

Edited by lingoleng on 01 January 2011 at 1:23pm


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